DEMOCRATS-- INSUFFICIENT RESOLVE? OR IS IT EVEN WORSE THAN THAT?

I'm not certain how many times the hacks in Washington who work for us have to be told we want them to end the war in Iraq before they do something about it. And I'm not even talking about the hopelessly deaf Republicans or Lieberman. Today's Washington Post acknowledges that a majority of Americans favor a deadline for troop withdrawal.

The Post-ABC poll found that 53 percent of Americans favored setting a deadline for troop withdrawals. Among those who favored a deadline, 24 percent said they would like to see U.S. forces out within six months and 21 percent called for the withdrawals to be completed within a year. The rest of those who supported a timetable said they do not support withdrawing all troops until at least a year from now.

This is the first time a Post-ABC News poll has found that a majority of Americans supported establishing such a timetable for withdrawal, which has long been resisted by the president and even some Democrats.

Growing numbers of Americans also favored withdrawing U.S. forces even if civil order in Iraq has not been restored. The poll found that 42 percent favored keeping troops there until order is reestablished, while 56 percent said the troops should be redeployed to avoid further U.S. casualties, even if the sectarian violence is continuing.

And while reactionary and pro-war Democrats like Rahm Emanuel and Steny Hoyer are working full time to sabotage Jack Murtha's efforts to come up with a solid plan to establish requirements for the training and resting of military units that would have the effect of limiting the number of troops available to send to Iraq, a full 58% of Americans approve of his approach. "Even some Americans, 21 percent, who supported the president's troop surge said they would favor rules for training and resting troops."

Two of the most perceptive bloggers I know, Matt Stoller and David Sirota, are as concerned as we are at DWT that there is insufficient resolve on the part of Democrats in Congress to end the war. I'm not basing my concerns on some poorly written story the AP put out over the wires today about a lack of support for Murtha. If you follow this blog, you know I've been writing about it for weeks and pointing out the culprits and their records of playing footsie with the Bush Regime. People like Emanuel, Hoyer, Berman, Tauscher, Schiff are all in solidly blue districts. They should be held accountable for the war.

Sirota's read of the AP piece is that it "tells the story of how Democrats in Washington clearly do not want to end the Iraq War. This story includes all of the tell-tale signs of both a party that disdains the will of voters and a media unwilling to report even the most basic facts: Nancy Pelosi reading Fox News talking points that claim conditioning funding on American troops' training is supposedly not supporting the troops; Harry Reid nonchalantly saying in the face of mounting casualties that there's no real urgency to do anything on the war because 'Iraq is going to be there;' and the AP writer refusing to acknowledge consistent public opinion polls by CNN and the Washinton Post that show the public strongly supports Congress cutting off funding for Bush's military escalation and conditioning funding on adequate troop training, respectively.  

Make no mistake about it: The renewed refusal by Democrats to use their majority in even the most basic way to stop the war is a declaration that the new majority is not close to using even the most basic powers afforded to it to stop or slow down the war. In other words, in backing off, the Democrats have just weeks after the 2006 anti-war election mandate effectively declared themselves as supportive of the Bush administration's stay-the-course policy-- a truly sickening act of cowardice."